in their veins; a branch of that old Teutonic race which came with the
Angles and Saxons into England and subdued the Britons, and who, in
the persons of the Franks, entered Gaul, and spread its blood across
Europe. They are a people most nearly akin to the English of all
European folk, in language, form and feature resembling them, and in a
certain dogged persistence, and an inalienable indestructible air of
personal freedom.
Even under the early Dutch Government of the East India Company, they
were not always restful and resented interference and external control.
They frequently felt themselves “ondergedrukt,”[A] and, taking their
guns, and getting together wife and children and all that they had, and
inspanning their wagons, they trekked[B] away from the scant boards
of civilization into the wilderness, to form homes of freedom for
themselves and their descendants.
In 1795 England obtained the Cape as the result of European
complications, and the South African people, without request or desire
on their part, were given over to England. England retired from the
Cape in 1803, but, owing to other changes in Europe, she took the Cape
again in 1806, and has since then been the